Popular video game can crash Xbox 360

Don't Waste Your Money

The new
Grand Theft Auto 5 could turn out to be the biggest video game title ever, and fans can't get enough of it.

Unless you are a fan who happens to own an older, first generation Xbox 360, in which case you may not be able to play it at all.

Freezes, or Won't Play at All

Dave Allen is frustrated. He recently bought the hot selling Grand Theft Auto 5, hoping to play it on his first generation Xbox.

"This one here is an early generation Xbox 360," he said, having purchased it back in 2008.

But that turned out to be a problem: The game refused to load.

"You have a 2 disc system," he explained. "You have an installation disc, and then a second game disc."

Allen's Xbox, though, said the second disc was unreadable.

"It didn't read the disc, it acted basically as if there was no disc in the tray at all." At least his Xbox still works: some blogs reports Xboxes freezing up, requiring unplugging and complete reboot.

But when a friend loaned him this newer, 2- year old Xbox, the new game played fine. There was nothing wrong with the disc .

Many Complaints Online

Turns out this is a common issue: We found
dozens of complaints online that the new GTA 5 would not load, or would crash the console, on pre-2009 Xboxes.

This does not include the many complaints about the online version of the game also causing problems, and causing "character deletion."

We contacted Microsoft, where a spokesman told us the new game "
pushes the limits" of older Xboxes, and says it
"requires 8 gigs of free space," which many older units no longer have. They were shipped with 20GB, but much of that space is now taken up with data from other games.

Dave Allen, though, says like a lot of gamers, he may soon have to upgrade to a newer Xbox, either the newest 360 or the upcoming Xbox One. With the new model coming out, a lot of people may soon be saying goodbye to their older models.

Some Workarounds

A footnote: Some Xbox owners say they have found workarounds posted online that don't require purchasing an external drive, that include unplugging the console and clearing the Xbox's data cache.

So if you're having issues, check the possible fixes before you pitch your older Xbox, so you don't waste your money.

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